


Vigil

by texelations



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 05:13:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12810372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/texelations/pseuds/texelations
Summary: There was nothing to compare to this stillness, to being the only one awake on a winter’s night such as this one. It left her restless, yet somehow she couldn’t make herself do anything else but rest here by Will’s side, occasionally reaching out to touch his cheek and finding it as burning hot as it had been this morning.





	Vigil

There was nothing to compare to this stillness, to being the only one awake on a winter’s night such as this one. It left her restless, yet somehow she couldn’t make herself do anything else but rest here by Will’s side, occasionally reaching out to touch his cheek and finding it as burning hot as it had been this morning. Thankfully he hadn’t needed to miss school, since it was the first day of winter break. Even more fortuitously, she hadn’t been scheduled for work.

Joyce stood, tucking a bookmark in the book she’d been holding ever since he’d fallen asleep as she read to him and setting it on the side table. He had everything here he needed for a sick day—tissues, orange juice, a deck of cards, and indeed, his mother. She swiped her fingers down his cheek one more time, as though the mere seconds that had passed since the last time she’d checked him would have made a difference in breaking his fever, and she left, indulging the restless feeling in her gut.

Joyce walked slowly down the empty hallway, the only lighting that touched her face the lights of the Christmas tree. She stared at them as though benumbed, hands gripping her opposite elbows, and walked up to the tree, just looking at it. 

_He talked to her through the lights. He needed her, he was in danger, and she couldn’t help him._

She shook herself, a twist in her chest making it hard to breathe, and continued on her path, going to the kitchen and switching on a light so she could see to wash the dinner dishes. Will’s soup bowl from earlier, and her own sandwich plate. Not much needed washed up, and as long as she was unable to sleep she thought she might as well take care of what needed done.

_He was lying in bed, and the darkness was in him, and they could only blast him with heat to bring him the light._

She shuddered then, nearly dropping the plate as the soapy water on it made it slip out of her grip. She caught it with her other hand, rinsed it, and set it in the drainer.

“You can’t do this,” she admonished herself aloud. She couldn’t compare the terrors he’d gone through because of the Upside Down to a simple fever and cough.

The stillness again overwhelmed her after she’d washed the bowl and spoon and set it all in the drainer. She couldn’t find anything else to do—she’d done it all by now. She turned and wiped the counter with the dishcloth, and hung it on its hook, and went back to the front room to sit on the couch and stare at the lights. The lights, the lights, the lights that had seemed so comforting a reminder that Will was all right were now a mocking rejoinder that told her she couldn’t help him when it came to something this simple. It was just a fever, that was nothing, but he was sick, and she was helpless. She felt that twinge again in her chest, but she clamped it down with a purse of her lips, and she rose and turned off the Christmas lights.

She was back now, and that twist in her soul eased as she lowered herself into the chair at Will’s side. She sat and gazed at his peaceful face, and thought about how it had matured in the year since he was gone, and how he looked as a toddler when he’d gotten his first fever, and she’d felt helpless then knowing her baby was ill, but it was nothing like this. Now she knew what it was to lose a child and what it was to have him be sicker than anything she could imagine and what it was to defeat the demons that had plagued him and a fever? A fever should be nothing. Nothing! 

She reached over and felt his cheek. It was still hot.

Joyce pulled her hand back slowly and clenched it in the fingers of the other, rising once again. Will had survived. There was one thing he had done and done well and that was survive. Her heart began to pound as she turned out the light and left, reluctant steps powering ahead even as she wished she could sleep in that awful wooden rocking chair where she’d been sitting for hours. But it was not to be, and she knew she needed to get into bed and sleep and leave him peacefully alone.

Her bedroom door was open. She went in, shut it, and slipped her jeans off and put them on the end of the bed. She was wearing a T-shirt, which would be all right to sleep in. It was better to slip into bed in the darkness and pretend she hadn’t been feeling so off, so disjointed, and sleep. 

She crawled onto the bed. A low hum came from the person at the other side.

“He asleep yet?” Hopper muttered, his hand settling on her hip in the darkness as she laid down and faced him. 

“Oh, he’s been asleep for…” she admitted, but trailed off and said, “You’ve been waiting for me?”

“Mmh,” he affirmed, and scooted closer, hand coming up to caress her hair. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, but it was after a hesitation, her voice cracking because of the lie. “I’m just, I keep _thinking_ —”

He waited a beat for her to finish, and then he drew his arm around her shoulder, settling his body against hers. “You never finish that sentence,” he said.

“No, I know,” she said, and her tone betrayed her, and she felt that twist again, the tears that had seemed to be threatening to overflow out of her chest if she admitted the way she was thinking. “Oh, Hop, it’s just…” She started to turn away, to roll onto her back. His arm loosened in accordance to her actions, to let her turn, but the feeling in her chest broke and she rolled back toward him.

Joyce didn’t know how long she cried into Hopper’s chest. She didn’t think, afterward, that it was too very long. She didn’t know how long she slept, either, though she found it had been enough.

And when she awoke after sleeping in and found that Hopper had fed Will his breakfast, and that Will’s antibiotic had finally broken his fever, and that the sun was shining on a crisply chilly winter’s morning, somehow she found she could breathe a little easier.


End file.
